


It's a Gem Monster, Steven Universe

by possibilityleft



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Gen, Halloween, missing episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 03:55:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4989286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possibilityleft/pseuds/possibilityleft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steven and Onion go trick-or-treating, with Amethyst to supervise.  Nothing at all could possibly go wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's a Gem Monster, Steven Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [milkandhoney](https://archiveofourown.org/users/milkandhoney/gifts).



> I know that the Crewniverse said that Halloween doesn't exist in Steven Universe, but I couldn't resist having fun with the season. Happy Halloween!

When Steven woke up on Halloween morning, there was someone breathing in his face. That wasn't immediately a cause for concern, since sometimes Lion got too cuddly. At least he could breathe. But the bed didn't contain the warm animal smell that Steven associated with his companion, and the person's breath was-- marginally-- more pleasant than Lion's, which usually smelled like copper and something sour.

Steven opened his mouth. A small person was staring down at him intently, their breath moving the black fabric covering their mouth. The fabric wrapped around the rest of the person's head and continued down their body. Steven had a pretty good view because the person was crouched next to his head on his bed.

There was a ninja in his house!

"Aaah!" Steven shouted, and the person pulled a shiny throwing star from a pocket. Steven was struggling then to get away, but he was caught in the bedclothes and ended up falling onto the floor. The throwing star embedded in the floor just beyond his outstretched fingers. Steven scrambled to his feet and rushed down the stars, trying to get away. Where were the Gems? Where had the ninja come from? What was he going to do?

"Hi, Steven," Vidalia said. She was sitting on the couch, a cup of tea on the coffee table in front of her. She smiled at his disheveled appearance.

"Onion is so excited about going trick-or-treating today too," she said. "He insisted on putting on his costume as soon as he got up."

The ninja peered over the edge of the upper room down at them. A blonde curl escaped from his wrapped head. Steven clutched at his chest until his breathing slowed to normal. At that moment, the Gems appeared on the warp pad in a stream of light.

"Steven, you're awake!" Amethyst said, slapping him on the shoulder in greeting. "Sorry about that, Val, Gem stuff, you know how it goes," she said to Vidalia, taking a seat beside Vidalia on the couch.

"You guys went on a mission without me?" Steven said, disappointed.

"Well, you were sleeping," Pearl said in her most reasonable voice. "Growing humans need their rest. We didn't want to wake you."

"We were all right," Garnet said, pausing to pat Steven on the head before leaving the house.

Steven bit his lip. Pearl said, "We have guests, Steven. Why don't you get dressed? In your regular clothes, please. Greg said that trick-or-treating didn't start until the evening."

She looked up at Onion, but he just stared back.

"Adorable," she said flatly, and then she crossed the warp pad to the temple door and let herself in.

Steven looked up the stairs, but Onion was still there. After a moment, without taking his eyes from Steven, he slipped over the edge of the empty edge, falling into his mother's lap. Vidalia caught him without losing track of her conversation with Amethyst. They were talking about something that had happened long before Steven had been born, and laughing.

Steven went back up the stairs and dressed hurriedly. Then he walked back down the stairs like he was supposed to so Onion would know how to do that safely.

*

Vidalia didn't stay the whole day. She'd mostly come over to arrange the evening with Amethyst, since she had to work that night at her other job, Beach City Grocery. She said that she liked painting better, but the owner let her keep all the weirdly bruised fruit, and they made for interesting still lifes.

Onion stayed. At least, Steven was pretty sure he had. Every once in awhile, he felt eyes on himself, but he could never figure out the source. Onion was pretty great at being a ninja, truly, but Steven would have felt better about that if he didn't feel like he was Onion's target.

Steven had been working on his costume for months and he'd changed his mind half a dozen times on what he wanted to be. He often wished that Halloween came more than once a year. Once a season would work best, he told Amethyst.

Amethyst was uninterested in costumes. She could turn into anything she wanted and made a number of quick changes while Steven pondered makeup and last-minute changes. Finally, he settled the cowboy hat on his head.

"Look, Onion!" he said, craning his neck around and not seeing Onion anywhere. "I'm Ranger Guy!"

Amethyst snickered. "Onion left like, ages ago, Steven. Didn't you notice? What do you think of this?"

Amethyst turned into a crocodile and chased him around the house, fake-snapping at his heels, until he took a corner too fast and broke a lamp. They swept it up though, so maybe Pearl wouldn't be too mad.

The doorbell rang, and Vidalia and Onion were back. Onion was still dressed up in his costume, just a pair of bright eyes against the darkening night. Vidalia kissed Onion on the top of his head, thanked Amethyst again, and headed off to her job. Onion tugged at Steven's sleeve.

"Onion wants to know if it's time to go yet!" Steven said to Amethyst. He was starting to get hot with Ranger Guy's kerchief pressed against his face, and he pulled it down off his chin.

Onion shook his head, but Amethyst dragged them out onto the boardwalk anyway. It was crowded with all the other kids of Beach City, costumed and grinning, with their bags of candy. Connie texted Steven a picture of her costume. She was a vampire, bright red blood dripping from the corner of her smile. She wasn't going trick-or-treating this year, she told him. Her parents were having a party, and she was giving out candy, although she said she was saving him some of her favorites.

"That's all I ask," Steven told her, but then he had to hang up and defend his own candy stash, because Onion and Amethyst were both completely shameless when he got something they really liked.

They walked around for hours collecting candy. At some point, Onion transferred the contents of his bag to a bright red wagon. It made the ninja costume a little less authentic, but Amethyst loved it. She turned into a cat and curled up on top of the pile, sinking her claws into the wrappers like a tiny dragon. Onion tried to push her off a couple times, to no avail.

"Amethyst, why don't you turn into something and get people to give you candy that way?" he asked her. Her answer was muffled by the candy bar she'd stolen from him and stuffed into her mouth, wrapper and all.

"Pearl made me promise," she said, and then swallowed, "not to terrify anyone too much, because it attracts the wrong kind of attention." She rolled her eyes.

"But tonight is the night for scary stuff!" Steven said, gesturing broadly, and even Onion nodded.

Before Amethyst could do anything, though, someone started screaming. After a moment, they realized that it wasn't a fun kind of screaming -- this wasn't the thrilled terror of children, it was the concern and fear of the people in the town. And because they were the Crystal Gems (plus Onion), Amethyst and Steven ran toward the screaming.

They didn't have to go too far. There was a gem shard monster on the boardwalk down by the fry restaurant, extra limbs poking out from under a sheet. The sheet had two eyeholes, out of which protruded fingers. Amethyst shuddered.

"Nothing creepier than that," she said, pulling her whip from her gem and rushing toward it. Steven wasn't sure how it saw anything without any eyes, and with being underneath the sheet as well, but it immediately began running in the opposite direction. They followed it, candy crunching under their feet; apparently the monster had been hungry too. Steven held tight to Onion's hot little hand, but Onion wasn't moving very fast. Steven glanced back and saw that Onion was still pulling the red wagon full of candy.

"Onion, come on!" Steven said. "We'll come back for it!"

Onion shook his head.

"We have to stop this thing!" Steven tried to reason with him, but Onion pulled his hand free of Steven's and stopped running, his other hand firm on the handle of the wagon.

"Onion!" Steven whined. Amethyst had disappeared, but up ahead he could hear her fighting, the whip crack loud in the open space. She probably needed his help. Desperately, Steven grabbed Onion, tossed him on top of the candy, and began to pull as fast as he could.

He came around the corner and very nearly collided with the Gem monster. It was struggling against Amethyst's whip, tight around its midsection. Steven threw up a shield instinctively and it tripped over him, falling hard onto the street.

"Good one!" Amethyst called out. Steven reached out and tugged at the sheet that the monster was wrapped in. They would need to find the gem shard location in order to poof the beast, but it was too big for him to free the sheet. The thing was reaching for him with several arms, touching him, pulling at his clothes, and Steven pulled back, trying to escape its reach. Something silver shot past him from behind.

And then it poofed, and Steven fell back onto the pavement. Amethyst's whip came free, and Onion looked-- well, Steven thought he should be surprised, but Onion didn't seem surprised at all. He was sitting on top of the crumbled white sheet holding a ninja star in one hand, and the mashed-together Gem shards in the other.

"Not for you, little man," Amethyst said. She was breathing hard, but she took the shards from Onion and bubbled them, and then sent them back to the temple.

"Seriously?" Steven said under his breath, but he wasn't going to be upset, not really. Onion had saved him from the monster, and even if it was unexpected, he appreciated it. He patted Onion on his little black-clad head. Onion pointed at Steven's bag of candy, which he had thrown in the wagon with the rest.

"Do you want a piece? Aww, sure," Steven said, and Onion upended the entire bag into the wagon.

"I was -- Onion!" Steven protested, but Onion climbed into the wagon and waited expectantly. Steven began pulling. He pulled the wagon, following Amethyst, all the way back to the temple. Vidalia was waiting there, and she looked tired, but she smiled when she saw them coming. Onion leaped out of the wagon at the bottom of the steps and hurried over to his mom.

"I hope you boys had fun," Vidalia said.

"Tons," Amethyst said, and burped. She extracted a candy wrapper from the corner of her mouth, looked at it, and then swallowed it again. "He's a good kid."

"I'm glad," Vidalia said. "Come on, Onion, we have to get to bed. Grab your candy and say goodbye to Steven."

Steven was at the bottom of the steps, debating with himself. He didn't know what candy was his since Onion had mixed them all up, and sat on a bunch of it besides. Onion clambered down the stairs and put his little hot hand in Steven's for a moment. When he withdrew it, Steven was holding a Tootsie Roll. Steven stared at it as Onion and Vidalia walked back down the path from the temple, the wagon clattering behind them.

Steven sighed deeply.

He followed Amethyst inside, yawning despite himself. He didn't want Halloween to be over. Pearl was sitting on the couch, but she got up when they came in.

"There you are!" she said. "I was beginning to get worried."

"No worries, P," Amethyst said. "Me and Steven can take care of ourselves."

"I know, I know…" Pearl said, biting her lip.

"We defeated a Gem shards monster while we were out," Amethyst continued casually.

"What?!" Pearl said. "Tell me everything immediately."

She grabbed Amethyst's arm and steered her toward the temple door. She paused to look back over her shoulder. "But Steven needs some sleep. Steven, no one came for the candy I was supposed to give out, so I suppose you'll have to eat it. But now you should go to bed, it's past your bedtime."

They disappeared into the temple but Steven hadn't paid attention to anything after she mentioned the candy. It was piled high in a bowl on the coffee table, full of chocolate and taffy and all kinds of delicious things.

"Whoohoo!" Steven shouted in victory, and ran toward his reward.


End file.
